PVP rules and looting
As this game is very heavilly PVP driven, the rules governing it are pretty harsh. Anywhere in open world FFA PVP is enabled. Balance and order have to switch to FORCED FRIENDLY FIRE to damage and/or kill the same faction. There will be harsh penalties when such action is observed by third party (if not observed, such covardly action will net the player a lot of standing with the chaos faction for the next era). Area of effect abilities are always friendly fire enabled when they hit at least one enemy player. If hitting an enemy player with aoe while also hitting/downing friendly player, the punisment does not apply. If aimed with aoe at friendly faction the forced friendly fire has to be enabled. Punisment applies. Chaos players have FFA PVP with friendly fire enabled all the time except for when inside the maelstrom where FFA is disabled except for when in a challenge. Balance and order players can duel (no finishing blow, no penalties, full life restore to the level before the duel started after it's finished. If hit by enemy player during duel, duel is ended but the restoration of life is not applied. Chaos players can't duel. When downing enemy player on a battlefield, that player will wake up on his own at the same location - on low life and snared for a long time. If downed within the duration of this debuff, the time to wake up and snare duration gets longer. * first time downed - wake up in 20 sec, 1 min debuff * second time downed while under the debuff - 30 sec to wake up, 3 minutes debuff * third time downed while under the debuff - minute to wake up, 10 minutes debuff During the downed period any player can land a FINISHING BLOW that will kill the player, shattering soul flagment (see soul fragment), the player will drop all his currently equipped gear and resources (stackable items stacked) that can be then looted by any other player. Those items won't be identified before looting them. Only one item can be looted at a time (no aoe looting). Players will also be able to loot the enemy while they're still just downed before using finishing blow. This will work in a way that while channelling the 'looting', each time period one random item will be dropped until the player wakes up, efficiently stealing items without having the penalty for killing them be incurred. When in combat, players can't change equipment or destroy it. For balance and order - using a finishing blow on a friendly faction player is punished even harsher than downing that player if a third party is a witness to it. Such a player is blacklisted and if he/she approaches a friendly outpost with guards, they will jail him/her. Using finishing blow on a friendly player requires to enable forced friendly fire and gives a lot of chaos faction standing. Chaos players can use finishing blow on chaos players without any penalty. Casting finishing blow takes 10 seconds (channeling) and is interrupted by receiving any debuff or damage. Respawning * In addition to respawning on the spot if just downed, players will respawn elsewhere when completely killed (they will be able to choose based on availability and distance, time to respawn will be affected by it (longer distance - longer respawn time). * Chaos players will respawn in the nearest rift with a small chance of respawning back in maelstrom (potentially stranding them), not based on choice * Order will have to spawn in the nearest temple (with graveyard) if built in an outpost, unlimited uses * Balance will respawn in a frankenstein lab in a mobile outpost or base (t2+), on t3 limited uses in the field